You won’t ever see a film quite like The Forbidden Room again, which is an amazing feat, considering that directors Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson actually pulled the film together from the DNA of lost and forgotten film ideas that never got made. Combining them together in a helter skelter fashion, Maddin and Johnson created a bonkers than all hell feature film out of it that sits at what feels like a never ending 128 minutes.
Maddin dug deep into historic film archives and dug up films that were lost over time, or titles of movies that no longer exist, and gave them a new imagining, creating new stories and ideas within them, and then slapping them all together for one crazy ride. There’s no doubt about it, The Forbidden Room is a maddening experience that will either drive you to the brink of insanity, or drowning deep in tears of joy at one of the most eccentric and strange cinematic experiences that will probably ever grace your eyes.
Here are just some of the plots that exist within the films crazy world: An opening monologue that is an eduction film on the history of bathtubs performed by poet John Ashbery, men stuck in the enclosed bunker of a doomed submarine where they extend their survival thanks to the air from the flapjacks they consumed before. Aman kills in order to cover up the fact he forget his wifes birthday, and a performance from the band Sparks whose songs play in a scene involving a brain surgery in order to repress sexual desire. Yeah, it’s that sort of movie.
There were moments I was completely sucked into the colorful world that Maddin and Johnson stitched together, absorbed into the controlled chaos even though I was struggling to piece it all together. There were also fleeting moments where I was completely lost and times that I thought the film would never end, and that I was now a character stuck in the madness forever. As well as they try, it’s hard to find a connective cohesive thread throughout the 128 minute runtime, which somehow feels closer to three hours than two.
Shot with an old timey vintage coloring and it has a feel that relates more to silent films than the big tentpole blockbusters of todays CGI world, there’s something about the aesthetic that The Forbidden Room promotes that is hard to resist. There are many unfamiliar faces that make up of the expansive cast, but some of the more familiar ones include Charlotte Rampling, Mathieu Amalric, Caroline Dhavernas, and Maria de Mederios.
It asks a lot from you but if you’re willing to submit to its madness, you may come out of it gushing with joyous glee because of the cinematic risk and adventure that Maddin and Johnson deliver. Or maybe you’re now going insane. Either way, you’re mind is transported to a different place for The Forbidden Room’s entire runtime, and it’s something that you never will forget, like it or not.
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